Here's Wikipedia's take on the difference:
Typically, in Texas and surrounding states, chicken-fried steak is deep-fried in a pan and served with traditional peppered milk gravy. The same dish is sometimes known as "country-fried steak" in other parts of the United States, where it is subject to some regional variations. Often there is a brown gravy, and occasionally the meat is either pan-fried with little oil, or simmered in the gravy. In some areas, "country steak" may refer to Salisbury steak, a chopped or minced beef patty in brown gravy.
Other meats may be used, with chicken-fried chicken having appeared on many menus substituting a boneless chicken breast for the steak. The dish known as "chicken-fried chicken" differs from the dish known as "fried chicken" because the meat is removed from the bones, and cooked in the fashion of chicken-fried steak. Another term is steak-fried chicken. Boneless pork chops, usually center cut, are served in this manner, as well as beef cutlet (tenderized round steak), buffalo, or boneless chicken breasts.
Note that, although the dish described here is the most common definition of "country-fried steak," some regions of the United States use this term to refer to what, in other regions, would be called chicken-fried chicken (or, at least, something similar, depending on how one precisely defines the recipes).
|